Introduction to Flash Animation in InDesign CS5

Who says you need to work with Adobe Flash to create Flash content? Adobe InDesign CS5 adds a load of new features and panels that enable you to add interactivity to your documents. From motion, buttons, video, and more, Brian Wood shows how you can turn your InDesign documents into multimedia extravaganzas!

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Who says you need to work with Adobe Flash to create Flash content? Adobe InDesign CS5 adds a load of new features and panels that enable you to add interactivity, motion, video, and much more to your InDesign documents by exporting to the SWF file format (see Figure 1) for viewing using the Adobe Flash player. This opens up a whole new world to those of us who don’t use Adobe Flash. You can even export to the native format for Adobe Flash called FLA. That way, you can either publish the file in SWF format to be used on a website, for instance, or hand it over to a Flash developer as an FLA file to add some finishing touches to it.

In this article, I want to take you through the basics of taking your InDesign file and adding the following, and then exporting:

When you start working on a project for export to SWF, there are a few things that can make your life easier:

When you create the content, create content (colors, images) in the RGB color space.

Try to make the document size (adjustable by choosing File > Document Setup) the size at which it will be viewed as a SWF. While scaling is possible when you export to SWF, it may not be optimal for some objects.

Try not to copy and paste images to repeat images. This can create a larger file size.

Make sure that transparent objects do not overlap any interactive element, such as a button or hyperlink. The interactivity could disappear.

Add Buttons to Your Document

The first thing we’ll do is to add a button to the document in InDesign. Buttons are used in your Flash content for lots of things. Most of us use them to navigate the document or control a video. You can create a button from almost anything. This includes a raster image, a placed Illustrator file, drawn content, a group, and much more.

In your document, draw a rectangle
and add some text for the
button. Select all of the button
content and group it together
(grouping is not necessary).

Open the Buttons panel by
choosing Window > Interactive > Buttons.

TIP

You can show all of the panels
necessary to work with interactive
content by choosing Window > Workspace > Interactive
or choosing Interactive from
the workspace switcher in the
Application bar.

With the object(s) selected
on the page, click the Convert
Object to a Button button
at the bottom of the Buttons
panel (see Figure
2). After the object is
converted to a button, you
can create “states” for
it. To learn more, visit InDesign
Help (Help > InDesign Help)
and search for “Change
button appearance for rollover
and clicking.”

Buttons, animations, and other
content can also be added to
a master page and appear on multiple
pages easily. You can also copy
and paste buttons between pages
in a document or to other documents.

In the Buttons panel, give
the button a name if you
like to differentiate it later
on from other buttons.

Choose an Event (when the
Action(s) occur) from the
Event menu.

Click the Plus (+) in the
Buttons panel to add an action.
The top part of the list
shows actions that can be used
in SWF and PDF files. There
are also SWF only actions listed.
Choose Go To Next Page. The
action is now listed in the
panel. If you want to remove
that action, select it in
the Buttons panel list and click
the minus (-) button (see Figure
3).

Make sure not to use the actions in the Buttons panel listed under PDF Only when creating content for export to SWF. They won’t work in the published SWF.

TIP

Tip: You can add multiple actions to a button if you like. Just know that the actions you add to a button are listed in the order in which they will be performed, the top action being the first to be performed.